.. < chapter xxiii 28  THE LEE SHORE >


     Some chapters back, one Bulkington was

spoken of, a tall, new-landed mariner, encountered in New Bedford at the inn.


     When on that shivering winter's night, the Pequod thrust her vindictive bows

into the cold malicious waves, who should I see

.. <p 105 >

standing at her helm but Bulkington!  I looked with sympathetic awe and

fearfulness upon the man, who in mid-winter just landed from a four years'

dangerous voyage, could so unrestingly push off again for still another

tempestuous term.  The land seemed scorching to his feet.  Wonderfullest

things are ever the unmentionable; deep memories yield no epitaphs; this

six-inch chapter is the stoneless grave of Bulkington.  Let me only say that

it fared with him as with the storm-tossed ship, that miserably drives along

the leeward land.  The port would fain give succor; the port is pitiful; in

the port is safety, comfort, hearthstone, supper, warm blankets, friends,

all that's kind to our mortalities.  But in that gale, the port, the land, is

that ship's direst jeopardy; she must fly all hospitality; one touch of

land, though it but graze the keel, would make her shudder through and

through.  With all her might she crowds all sail off shore; in so doing,

fights 'gainst the very winds that fain would blow her homeward; seeks all

the lashed sea's landlessness again; for refuge's sake forlornly rushing into

peril; her only friend her bitterest foe!  Know ye, now, Bulkington?

Glimpses do ye seem to see of that mortally intolerable truth; that all deep,

earnest thinking is but the intrepid effort of the soul to keep the open

independence of her sea; while the wildest winds of heaven and earth

conspire to cast her on the treacherous, slavish shore?  But as in landlessness

alone resides the highest truth, shoreless, indefinite as God --so, better is

it to perish in that howling infinite, than be ingloriously dashed upon the

lee, even if that were safety!  For worm-like, then, oh!  who would craven

crawl to land!  Terrors of the terrible!  is all this agony so vain?  Take

heart, take heart, O Bulkington!  Bear thee grimly, demigod!  Up from the spray

of thy ocean-perishing --straight up, leaps thy apotheosis!

.. <p 106 >